


An Egg-celent Day

by DeceitfulHonesty



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Easter Eggs, Egg Hunt AU, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 02:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6311515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeceitfulHonesty/pseuds/DeceitfulHonesty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma is not very good with kids, so she is not enjoying the egg hunt she signed up to work. At least there's another cute volunteer to help her out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Egg-celent Day

“Go!”

  
With that one word, Jemma was swarmed with frantic children wielding baskets and plastic bags. She scrunched up, tucking her arms into her chest and squeezing her knees together to make herself the smallest target possible. The stampede quickly passed as the children, like a plague of locusts, decimated the field, clearing every plastic, pastel egg they laid their eyes on.

  
Once the immediate danger passed, Jemma relaxed and surveyed the damage. Most parents stood off to the side, chatting with each other and sipping beers (despite it being ten in the morning), but a few trotted after their toddlers, pointing out eggs to load up the baskets. Jemma was appalled by the few who seemed to be encouraging their kids to be aggressive to get the most eggs. Jemma had seen the prize baskets; they weren’t worth the extra effort.

  
Jemma spotted a pastel, yellow uniform shirt that matched her own across the field. The girl wearing it was crouched down in front of a little boy, her face lighting up with excitement as the child showed her the basket full of eggs he had already gathered.

  
Even from a distance, the girl was cute. The way the sun reflected off her brown, wavy hair made her look like some sort of spring angel that descended to bless this ridiculous egg hunt.

  
A tug on her shirt pulled Jemma’s eyes away from the girl. A tiny child in a tulle-covered pink dress stood at Jemma’s feet, looking at her expectantly.

  
“Um...hello?” Jemma muttered. She was really hoping to get through this day without interacting with any kids. “Where are your parents?”

  
The girl said nothing, but held out a blue egg to Jemma.

  
“That’s, uh….very nice.”

  
The child pushed the egg into Jemma’s hand.

  
“Thank you?” Jemma muttered. The girl continued to look at her. _What did she want?_ Jemma shook the egg slightly, hearing the candy rattling inside. Ah, that was probably it.

  
Jemma dug her fingernails into the crack between the two halves of the egg, cracked it apart with a pop, and held it out to the girl.   
The child’s face shifted into shock and then crumpled as she started wailing. Jemma just sat there, stunned. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to form comforting words, but drawing a complete blank. Jemma’s eyes darted around the field, hoping the girl’s parents were close by and would come to her rescue, though she wasn’t sure how she was going to explain how she had made their child cry.

  
Someone appeared beside Jemma and crouched down to the child’s level. It took Jemma a moment to realize it was the cute girl from across the field. The girl took the egg from Jemma’s hand and snapped it back together, before holding it out to the child and asking about the ‘mean lady that broke her egg.’

  
A frazzled-looking woman balancing an infant on her hip jogged over to them.

  
“Oh, honey! What’s wrong?” the woman asked. “I’ll calm her down. Can you hold him for a minute?”

  
Without waiting for a reply, the woman handed the infant off to Jemma, scooped up the crying girl, and walked off a few paces, rocking her and cooing softly.

  
Jemma stared, wide-eyed at the baby. She held him at arm’s length away, with her hands under his arms. He didn’t seem too perturbed to be handed off to a stranger and stared right back, with spit dribbling from its mouth.

  
A chuckle bubbled up beside Jemma, but she didn’t spare a glance from the baby. She didn’t know what could happen if she looked away.

  
“You’re not great with kids, are you?” the girl asked.

  
The baby blew a spit bubble and wiggled his feet, clearly starting to get uncomfortable with his current position.

  
“I’ve never had much experience interacting with them, so no,” Jemma whispered. Would this one start crying randomly, too? “Who hands their baby to a complete stranger?” Jemma asked, her voice coming out a bit frantic.

  
The girl chuckled again. “Well, you look pretty official in your standard issue, egg hunt shirt.” Her eyes roamed up and down Jemma’s body. “Do you want me to hold him?”

  
“God yes.”

  
The girl effortlessly slid the baby from Jemma’s grip and propped him up on her shoulder with one hand on his back and the other under his rump. She gently bounced in place as she turned her attention back to Jemma.

  
“I’m Daisy, by the way. You should at least know my name, since we now have a kid together,” she teased.

  
Jemma huffed a terse laugh. “Jemma Simmons.”

  
“So, Jemma Simmons. I’m assuming you didn’t sign up for this voluntarily, since you don’t like kids,” Daisy pointed out.

  
“Very astute,” Jemma muttered, “I need a certain amount of community service hours to keep my scholarship.”

  
“Gotcha. Court-mandated community service,” Daisy said.

  
“Oh. Um…”

  
“I’m kidding,” Daisy smirked. “You should have seen your face, though. Me and Phil, the guy who puts this together, go way back. I’ve been coming up here for a few years and helping out.”

  
Jemma nodded. “You obviously have quite a lot of experience with children.”

  
Daisy shrugged. “I’ve been around kids a lot. You figure things out pretty quickly.”

  
The baby’s mother finally reappeared, toting the little girl by the hand, who was now sucking contently on a plastic egg. Jemma bit her lip to prevent herself from commenting on how unsanitary that was. The mother muttered a ‘thank you’ to Daisy and Jemma and took her baby back, before wandering off the field.

  
“So, Jemma Simmons. Should we see what else Phil wants us to do or keep screwing around?” Daisy asked, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

  
“I’d appreciate if you didn’t call me ‘Phil’ in public, Daisy,” a voice called out. A middle-aged man, wearing the same yellow shirt as Daisy and Jemma strode across the field and thrust a bulging trash bag into each of their arms. “In answer to your question, I need you two to hide these for the next session.”

  
Daisy grumbled good-naturally as Phil laid out the area the needed to be covered for the next, and the pair dutifully set out.   
Jemma carefully tucked a few eggs beside the fence and in the crooks of trees where she thought kids could reach them. She spared a glance across the path to Daisy, who was taking handfuls of eggs and tossing them carelessly around the hill she was working on. Jemma tried not to check her out as she went back to hiding her eggs. There was quite a few of them still to go.  

Something cracked across the back of Jemma’s head. “Ow!”

  
She rubbed at the spot, eyes landing on the small pink egg that hit the ground moments after. She spun to glare at Daisy, who wasn’t even facing her while throwing eggs into the air.

  
“You say someth— did I hit you? I’m so sorry! I wasn’t even paying attention where they were going,” Daisy called, jogging down the hill towards her.

  
Jemma could let it go. Or she could retaliate.

  
She grabbed an egg out of her bag and chucked it with all her might at Daisy. Daisy threw up an arm to block it and, initially, looked startled, but then a grin slid across her face like she was a kid in a candy store.

  
“Oh, it’s _on_.”

  
Jemma dove behind a tree, as handfuls of eggs came flying at her. She grabbed fistfuls and hurled them right back, hearing a few of them make contact. She grabbed her bag and darted to a different tree for cover when Daisy moved to aim around the tree.

  
Jemma couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about the egg fight. Technically, they were still distributing the eggs.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
Phil glanced at his watch. It had been almost an hour since he had sent Daisy and the new volunteer, Jemma, to hide the eggs.

  
“May, have you seen Daisy lately?” he asked.

  
May shrugged, before staring down a child who was trying to slide one of the prize baskets off the table. Phil glanced down the path Daisy had been sent down. It was a county park. There was no way she could get into trouble, right?

  
Some of the kids were starting to wander back from the direction of the hunt with bulging bags, so Phil knew Daisy and Jemma had done their jobs at least. Then, he started overhearing some of the kids’ conversations.

  
“Can girls get cooties from each other?”

  
“No, they’ve got the same cooties!”

  
“Oh. Then why don’t girls _always_ kiss each other, so they don’t give boys cooties?”

  
Phil dragged a hand down his face. Of course, Daisy would still manage to get into trouble.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay egg hunt au because guess what i was stuck doing yesterday? -.- (And it was hell cold for some reason)


End file.
